Inspiration, ideas and information to help women build public speaking content, confidence and credibility. Denise Graveline is a Washington, DC-based speaker coach who has coached nearly 200 TEDMED and TEDx speakers--including one of 2016's most popular TED talks. She also has prepared speakers for presentations, testimony, and keynotes. She offers 1:1 coaching and group workshops in public speaking, presentation and media interview skills to both men and women.

Friday, December 19, 2014

You won't mind if we get a little meta this week on Famous Speech Friday, and round up the speeches from The Eloquent Woman Index in which women talk about women and public speaking, will you?

It turns out that many famous speeches by women involve those speakers talking pointedly about the absence of women speakers other than themselves, or women's reluctance to speak publicly, themselves included. After all, they've got the mic. They may as well use it.

And they do it with humor, to inspire, and to caution. The point about speaking women often is the speech's opening salvo, but also may be its primary theme. So this collection of eight speeches also is a great range of examples for any woman speaker. Call that meta, if you wish. I call it magic:

"Two women in 160 years is about par for the course."Ann Richards's 1998 keynote at the Democratic National Convention used a sly dig to note that she was only the second woman to do the honors. It was just the first of a series of great uses of humor in this speech.

As with all our posts in The Eloquent Woman Index, you'll find (where available) video or audio and text or a transcript of each speech at the links, along with what you can learn for your own public speaking. Please share this important public speaking resource!